WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US military fighter aircraft shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon as it floated off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, drawing to a close a dramatic saga that shone a spotlight on worsening Sino-US relations.
“We successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” President Joe Biden said.
Biden said he had issued an order on Wednesday to take down the balloon, but the Pentagon had recommended waiting until it could be done over open water to safeguard civilians from debris crashing down to Earth from thousands of feet (meters) above commercial air traffic.
Multiple fighter and refueling aircraft were involved in the mission, but only one – an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia – took the shot at 2:39pm (1939 GMT), using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile, a senior US military official said.
The balloon was shot down about six nautical miles off the US coast, over relatively shallow water, potentially aiding efforts to recover key elements of the Chinese surveillance equipment among the debris in the coming days, officials said.
The shootdown came shortly after the US government ordered a halt to flights in and out of three South Carolina airports – Wilmington, Myrtle Beach and Charleston – due to what it said at the time was an undisclosed “national security effort.” The flights resumed on Saturday afternoon.
The balloon first entered US airspace on Jan 28 before moving into Canadian airspace on Monday Jan 30. It then re-entered US airspace on Jan 31, a US defense official said. Once it crossed over US land, it did not return to the open waters, making a shootdown difficult.
US officials did not publicly disclose the balloon’s presence over the United States until Thursday.
Washington has called it a “clear violation” of US sovereignty and notified Beijing about the shootdown on Saturday, a US official said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin first announced the shootdown, saying the balloon was being used by China “in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States.”
The US military did not immediately recover the payload from the Chinese surveillance balloon, US officials said. — NNN-AGENCIES